New TIPP Poll shows 46/44 lead for Obama but internals say he can’t possibly be ahead

Barack Obama leads 46/44 in new Investor’s Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP Poll. Well that’s what they are saying anyway.

The TIPP poll shows Mitt Romney has closed up a 7 point deficit since last month – oh how generous of them! Like so many other polls, however, this one attempts to balance a brick on a pin point. The problem is, there is nothing in TIPP’s accompanying internals that supports its headline numbers.

From the earliest days of this campaign the truth of Barack Obama’s numbers has remained the same: he is not winning any group he lost and not doing better with any group he did win in 2008.

These numbers are black and white and not subject to interpretation.

The sampling errors that seem to be build-in to all of today’s polls are of course present here. TIPP used 36% Democrats, 31% Republicans and 30 Independents If we use the Rasmussen report on actual Party registrations the numbers would be 36.8% Republican, 34.2% Democrat. The Independents are 30% and they used 30%. These numbers add up to a sampling skew of 6.7%, but that doesn’t even factor in the 16 enthusiasm edge for Republicans reported by Gallup.

Taking each category of voter and comparing what TIPP is reporting today with what Obama got in 2008, we see that Obama is NOT doing better with any voting bloc – not even those he carried.

Among the largest blocs Obama won, here are the “then and now” numbers.

Women (53% of voters); Obama won 56/43 – a 13 point margin. Today he is down to 51/40.

Men (47% of voters) were won by Obama 49/48 and today he is losing 48/40.

Obama won African Americans 95/4; today he is at 88%.

Obama won Jews with 78%; today he is down to 59%.

Among young voters 18 – 44 Obama is winning 49/39; in 2008 he took 57% of their votes.

In 2008 Obama won Catholics 54/45 now he’s at 46/44%.

Among Democrats he won 89/10. Today he’s winning Democrats 85/9. Among Republicans he lost 91/9 in 2008; today he’s at 88/6.